The Environmental and Social Management Framework (ESMF) is one out of four documents constituting the Environmental and Social Framework (ESF) and ESSs’ requirements to be developed, cleared and disclosed prior to the appraisal of the project. The ESMF is governed by the Environmental Social Commitment Plan (ESCP) and connected with the Stakeholder Engagement Plan (SEP) and the Community Engagement Framework (CEF), which complement each other. The ESMF, the SEP, and the CEF guide the implementation of material measures and action outlined in the ESCP, by providing all required procedural and technical details.
The ESCP is an action plan, which defines ‘higher level’ actions and commitments by the Borrower, Government of Lao PDR (GoL), to the Financier, the World Bank (WB), to be fulfilled during the entire project duration. These four documents complement each other and ensure that all requirements of the most recent WB safeguard policy and its Environmental and Social Safeguards (ESS) are met, in accordance with international commitments and the regulatory framework of the Lao PDR.